“At some point, you need to take this class more seriously”

P.E classes WebMd

1. Make it a grade instead of a pass/fail class.  Why? Well let me first just say this solution is for once they start middle school and high school; excludes elementary school and below. I think having P.E based on a grading scale would allow the student to take it more seriously, I mean a pass or fail grade is so cut and dry that one could pass and never even include his/her self in a activity; which allows this student to believe “Well fuck it, I don’t care”; you are getting paid to help and care not to forget about it and walk away.  Just my thought out loud. 
2. Trying to figure out why the child never wants to participate in the class. This is quite important, if anything this may give feedback and help you become a better P.E teacher and it may open doors to other issues this particular person is having, you get to understand them on a more personal level and it shows you care about their wellbeing. 
3. Make P.E fun and a learning experience, fun isn’t having them walking the whole gym for the entire period or telling them to find something to do that doesn’t involve any type of stimulating activity.  Having them do homework during the period isn’t fun and it’s not going to keep their attention.  Kids will grow bored. Get some team sports ready, have them choose different games to play that everyone would want to do, teach them something new; make things so that everyone can appreciate the time spent in class. 
4. If you are a P.E teacher and your school is debating about taking away P.E classes or ridding them, then it’s your job to not only fight for your job (as I would hope for) but also fight to keep something that is benefiting the children, give the board something to ponder before they come to that solution, don’t think about you, think about the students who enjoyed it, benefited from it and fight for it. 
5. P.E teachers need to take their job more seriously (more so high school P.E teachers) because at this point, if students notice you don’t give a fuck about your class neither will they and the lack of respect will start to happen both ways.  You obviously went to school to graduate in this particular field of work for some reason other than the pay and now you need to show that you take your job seriously and don’t allow yourself to become laxed because you notice a student don’t want to follow the rules; that should be more of a reason to take your job seriously so the students learn to respect you and your job.
6. Socializing is GREAT for P.E, I am all for it, but I am not for more socializing than action. Why do some P.E teachers allow a group of girls talk the whole class period long without having to participate in any activities, why do you allow your students to make fun of other students during the class and why are you allowing students to come in and sit on the bleachers to only watch other students play.
7. Students whom play a sport for the school should not have to take P.E because they already are staying active in other means, it should be optional for them but if a student is on a team and doesn’t get any time on the court, field, track then that coach needs to allow them to play or the coach needs to require them to take a P.E class (although, I am a firm believer even the bench warmers should play a game at some point) so no child is left behind in that aspect and so they get their regular exercise and feel part of the team too

Food network helps you eat healthy

My plate healthy eating

Eating Well-eating healthy

These are some links to also help give tips and tricks in eating healthier.

“You can eat healthier on a budget”

• Find replacement foods for what you do eat, if you like pizza, eat pizza but find alternative sauces and eat pizzas with more veggies as toppings.  That is just an example.
• drink more water, drink less sugaring drinks; this will be cost saving and a healthier option as well, if you will drink sugary drinks, then pick something with less preservatives
• take it slow, don’t go cold turkey on anything necessarily,
• limit your additives (someone else gave me this particular idea) additives would include: ranch, bbq sauce, mayo, ect.  Saves you money & allows you to eat healthier
• eat smaller portions, you will be amazed on how much this can help
• stay active 
• read labels on the products before buying, decide if there is a “better” alternative 
• as far as carbs go, this is never easy and trust me.. I am working on this as well.  First off, start with one carb at a time don’t just cut them all off at the same time.  If you want to eat less bread, then choose better breads & heartier breads and make it a goal to use this bread for healthy eatings
• you don’t have to buy “fresh” food to eat healthy if you cannot afford it.  As a matter of fact fresher foods in the produce section tend to go bad much quicker so they need eaten at quicker rates.  Instead look in the frozen veggie section, and sometimes canned veggies can be decent (just watch the sodium)
• meat section, eat a variety of meats. you don’t have to eat “top quality” meats, just eat what you can afford and base your meals off of that.
• Look into different recipes, nothing crazy, simple quick meals, something that your family or yourself would like and foods you normally buy but find variety in what you eat
• snack often but not large; snacks can be simple : fruits and nuts are a good snack food; plus it will hold your appetite.
• Dairy products are okay but just again watch the portion and keep in mind how you are using them 
• use healthier cooking oils, Oil can be expensive but it’s important to use oils that are “better” for you if you can
• budget and stick to it; however much you can afford, stick to it. Do what you can
• oatmeal can be inexpensive vs a box of cereal; and it’s healthier
• if you drink coffee, that is fine. Drink coffee but don’t add stuff to it to make it sweeter. Black coffee is supposed to be a healthier way of drinking coffee. 
• As far as sweets go, try to keep from buying so much candy, cupcakes, cookies if you can.  It will save you money & substitute them with applesauce, gluten free cookies, chips that aren’t as sodium filled and even popcorn that doesn’t have so much butter and salt. 
• the way you cook your foods make a difference too, for example instead of cooking fried chicken, make it baked.. ect
• the amount of protein (grams) you consume should be more than the amount of carbohydrates (grams) for starters
• Make enough to have for leftovers, so you can pack it for work, eat it the next night.
• Shop at bigger stores, I usually would say some place like whole foods would be ideal for healthier eating but they are priced much higher than a walmart, so if you are on a budget; look at the ads, online , and shop at bigger stores that offer more

“Put an end to this before it puts an end to them”

CDC child obesity

medicine.net childhood obesity

American heart association Child obesity

Kids health child obesity

So in case anyone wants to know why I am jumping to this topic, it’s because the other day while on facebook, I was talking with a “group” page that I have joined (not going to give out information to protect the people in it) but someone had decided to post a facebook “meme” with a picture of a girl no older than probably 12 eating an ice cream cone but she looked to be “overweight” & the picture asked “Do you consider this abuse” or something around that.   Now knowing myself this was the perfect topic for me, seeing as I am major in exercise science and I have this strong mindset on helping people in the fitness/health world.  Before I decided to make any comment, I read through all the other comments before me (there was around 100+ from the fellow group members & some agreed it was abuse and some had not believed it was & some thought it was “mean”/”cruel” we were passing judgement on this girl.  Now,  I had to think this through on how I was going to announce I believe it was abuse and explain myself because I wanted people to be made aware I wasn’t being “mean” or “cruel” but honest.  

I finally made a comment and it went something like this “Yes, this is abuse at it’s finest, but who can we blame when the parents are uneducated about health and or about life, and don’t care in particular about their child being “overweight” because these same parents were treated the same way by their parents which answers why they are also obese/overweight.  It becomes an ongoing cycle and because of this reckless behavior the child is the one whom suffers the most.  Now the little girl probably don’t think nothing much about her weight now, because mommy and daddy looks the same and mommy and daddy doesn’t seem to care about how they look. When this little girl starts to get picked on in school about her weight, she then either turns into a bully, her self esteem trimmers, her self worth becomes obsolete and as she reaches the age of 18, she then either decides she doesn’t like what she sees in the mirror anymore & gets help from a professional, eats healthier on her own & exercises, surgery depending on how bad it is and changes her lifestyle choices.  On the other hand she could also decide she doesn’t care how she looks anymore because she is so used to being “overweight” that it doesn’t phase her and she continues on this path of being unhealthy and some point she will fall into a depression, which then turns into her eating because of it and that causes more issues because now she can hardly move or want to leave the house, her body aches, she cries and is alone, her parents are still overweight and telling her it’s “okay” but she knows better, she thinks it’s too late and some point she may try to commit suicide or live a very unhappy life because she chooses to or has no one to lean on.  Now all of this has happened and we want to blame the child because she is 18, and can make her own decisions but then no one thinks about how the parents chimed in when she was younger and made her eat this unhealthy lifestyle because they did it themselves and didn’t know any better nor cared to stop it before it got to be a bigger issue in their daughter’s life.  

So now I have people saying they agree and liking my post.  I felt really good about it, until someone decided to post something a bit more heavy.   This lady decided to retort to me by saying she works at a homeless shelter and works for the welfare office and begs to differ with me because she knows these parents can’t afford to feed their children “healthier” foods so how dare I judge and make this assumption it is the parents fault and how dare I judge this poor little girl. The lady told me I need to look up prices of healthier options versus the unhealthy options & come back and let her know if it’s as easy as it sounds.  With this, I didn’t respond, because the post ended up being deleted because the person did not like the fact people were arguing over this “meme” & wanted it to cease so she rid of it.  You are probably wondering what I would say back, and in my next blog I will talk about this, for now I want to stay on the topic of unhealthy eating in children causing “obesity”.

I don’t care how you analyze this situation or how you believe it should be solved, it’s still abuse.  This is no different than a mother starving her child, the difference is the parents are allowing their child to binge eat to the point where they no longer can do day to day routines without struggling, being made fun of about their weight and then causing mental and physical abuse to this child.  Abuse is abuse, no matter what kind.. it’s wrong.  The problem with society is we make light of these situations but we do nothing about them when we see them in our face everyday.  We make light of the child in our kids class who is bigger than the other students but we sure don’t think about why before judging, we don’t teach our children to not make fun of kids who may be bigger in size or smaller in size, we say things in light of that child to make our children believe it’s okay to make jokes.  Now all of sudden we want to make people aware of child obesity is becoming a huge problem because now we see more and more cases where children commit suicide or turn into bullies or do obscene things.  Now we want to make sure every child eats healthier at school, every child participates in a gym class at least once. We want to motivate them to play sports but don’t allow this same child to play on the field because he/she isn’t as good at your star players. This in itself is an ongoing operation and no one seems to notice but me? This is sad.  

So we can’t control people’s households and we can’t force a child to participate in gym, and we can’t force them to eat healthy foods in school because they have a right to eat whatever their parents pack them if the parents deems necessary.  Although my 7 year old brother goes to school here in Ohio and his teacher sent out a notice to all the parents letting them know they are to pack “only healthy foods” nothing else will be accepted.  This was difficult for my mom because he is a picking eater still and only likes a select few of fruits and veggies and isn’t the biggest water drinker I know.  Somehow she managed it, but there were days she would pack him teddy grams as a snack and the teacher would tell him to tell our mom it’s not acceptable, my mom didn’t like this and she pretty much let her know the situation and how she will be packing his lunch. Now mind you, my mom is a wonderful lady and she still packs him “healthy” foods but some things just rub her the wrong way, especially since both of my brothers are skinny as all hell, they eat but have good metabolisms so she isn’t worried about his weight.  So with this being said, some things can’t always be enforced when a parent doesn’t want to follow through because they don’t feel the need to. When my 20 year old brother and I were in school they did not force us to eat healthy or even talk about healthy eating, we always participated in sports and gym class so we never had an issue with that but not all kids are like us and some don’t like it.   What can you do? Stop beating the children over the head with the health and wellness & start talking to the parents about it, make them aware of it and have them choose the destiny for their child.  Some parents will follow through and others will not, if a parent is sending their overweight child to school maybe we need to make this a sit down and talk with the mom/dad and see what is going on.. so that we can better help them instead of judging them & their circumstances. 

Who knows maybe this child eats because they are depressed, you don’t know until you ask someone and find out before it’s too late.  Now school healthy eating & gym will be a whole other conversation topic blog.  If child obesity isn’t important to you, it should be, because it’s sad and cruel to make a child who doesn’t know any better than what their parents/guardians tell them to have to go through such pain for the majority of their lives.  It’s not fair.  If you are a parent ( I am not one) then take responsibility for your child’s health & if you don’t know how, then do some research or seek some health advice.  If you cannot afford healthy means of eating, then how about you eat whatever, but portion it so that it doesn’t become a binge eating fest & keep your child active.  That’s the very least you can do if the situation is you can’t do “anything”, because now you know you can.  I believe child obesity is abuse.  I do realize some medicines can make a child gain weight and ailments as well, but think about how much weight these things will cause the child to gain and decide if it’s the medicine or is this another problem/ decide if this child has a condition and if they do, figure out how to make it so they can be cured, or do whatever you can so it’s not YOU putting weight on them, because we can’t help what the body does but YOU can decide what your child eats, and how much & make it easier on them in the long run.  No one is perfect, but don’t watch your child fall into a dark hole, help them get out of it. I don’t care how much he/she weighs, health has no weight! I care about how unhealthy or healthy a human is, obesity is NOT healthy. 

Thank you for reading, feel free to comment, share, follow and like.

Sincerely,

Your blogger Shay-lon

“You can be the change or the reason why someone cries”

• Overweight – Weighing too much, or more than is consider normal, proper
• Underweight- Weighing less than is usual, required or proper
• Obese- Very fat or overweight
• Normal- Conforming to the standard or the common type, usual, not abnormal, regular, natural
• Average- Quantity or rating

So as you can see one of these should probably not be used in describing someone.. hint : the last one. I think its important to understand these words before you describe someone or yourself using them.  I a lot of times people say words without thinking of the meaning, and many times I hear someone call themselves “fat” but they don’t even know what defines this word & how it’s a form of body shaming.  But I will not pretend everyone will follow the above vocab because I know people will stick with the body shaming words if it means its “cool” & everybody else is saying it. So to help those of you who will continue to use these particular words, I have decided to list definitions so there is no more confusion.

• Fat- Having too much flabby tissue, corpulent, obese, plump, well fed.  Fat can also mean other things such as rich, prosperous and wealthy, big, broad, extended, thick
•  Skinny- Very lean or thin, emaciated, narrow or slender, unusually low or reduces, meager, minimal
• Twig- A slender shoot of a tree or other plant
• Toothpick- Small pointed piece of wood or plastic for removing substances
• Curvy- of a women, having a well shaped figure with voluptuous curves
• Thick- Having relatively great extent from one surface or side to the opposite, not thin
• Slim- Sized for the thinner than average person.

I do know people use much more vulgar terms : fat ass, lard ass, skinny bitch, cow, some people have even conformed to using illnesses as a way to describe people: anorexic , bulimic ..& these vulgar terms aren’t going to stop either because people can’t seem to expand their vocab.  So we can deal with it and teach & continue to teach and stand up for what we think is better and keep our hope alive that someday people will have more compassion but until this happens.. lets just ignore them & do what we do best, work on us & help others achieve internal and external happiness! That is my goal. I can preach all day about body shaming words but it doesn’t mean people will change, but it could open some eyes & that’s all I want; I want it to open your eyes & for you to share this with others and it open their eyes and so forth until we have gotten to the point where people can condition themselves to use positivity when describing the way someone looks. Especially since no one is perfect.